Chapter 22 Hannah
Hannah
Hannah spread the files across Sugar & Spice's counter, each page a new wound. The bakery was dark except for one lamp, casting everything in harsh shadows. Outside, the town slept, unaware she was finally learning the truth about her father's victims.
The Wilsons: Their son's college fund, meant for medical school. Gone.
The Mortons: Second mortgage on their grocery store. Foreclosing.
The Patels: Retirement savings. Vanished.
Her fingers trembled as she turned another page. Names and numbers blurred together, but behind each figure was a story. A betrayal. A life destroyed by trust.
The bell above the door chimed softly.
"We're closed," she called without looking up.
"Routine patrol check." Jake's voice was carefully professional. He'd been doing these "checks" more frequently lately.
Hannah didn't tell him to leave. Couldn't find the energy to maintain their careful distance. Not tonight. Not with these files spread before her like accusations.
His footsteps crossed the floor, hesitating just behind her. Close enough that she could feel his warmth, smell engine grease and coffee and him.
"The Harrisons," she whispered, touching one page. "Michael's sister... she was studying medicine. Full scholarship." Her voice caught. "But she couldn't afford housing. Books. The basic stuff my father promised to help with."
Jake's breath hitched. She felt him shift closer, though he didn't touch her.
"And Mrs. Harrison..." Hannah's fingers clenched on the paper. "She's rationing her heart medication. The money she trusted my father to invest... it was for her medical care."
"Hannah—"
"I was a part of it." The words felt torn from her throat. "Smiled at them. Served them pastries while my father—" She broke off, pressing her hand to her mouth.
Jake's hand settled on her shoulder, warm and steady. She should shrug it off. Should maintain their boundaries. Should remember all the reasons she couldn't trust him.
Instead, she leaned back slightly, letting his strength support her.
"I didn't know," she whispered. "But I should have. I was so stupid—"
"No." His voice was rough. "You trusted your father. That's not stupid."
Hannah laughed bitterly. "Like I trusted you?"
His hand tightened on her shoulder, but he didn't pull away.
"The town's right to hate me." She stared at the files, at all the evidence of lives destroyed. "I was part of it. Even if I didn't know—"
"You were a victim too."
"Was I?" She turned finally, meeting his eyes. "Or was I just willfully blind? So desperate to believe in fairy tales that I missed what was right in front of me?"
Jake's other hand came up, cupping her face. His thumb brushed away tears she hadn't realized were falling.
"You see the best in people," he said softly. "That's not a weakness, Hannah. It's what makes you..." He trailed off, swallowing hard.
"A fool?"
"Beautiful." The word seemed torn from him. "It makes you beautiful."
Hannah closed her eyes, letting herself lean into his touch for just a moment. Let herself remember how it felt to believe in him. In anything.
Then she stepped back, his hands falling away.
"Thank you for checking on me." Her voice was steady now. Professional. "But I need to finish this."
Jake nodded once, jaw tight. He turned to leave, hand brushing against the door handle—then hesitated.
His voice was quiet but firm. "Lock up after me."
Hannah glanced up, surprised.
His eyes flickered toward the window, toward the darkness pressing against the glass. He didn't elaborate. Didn't have to.
Then, softer—like he needed her to hear it, even if she wouldn't believe it.
"You're not your father's crimes, Hannah."
She swallowed hard, but before she could find words—before she could push him away or pull him closer—he was already gone. The door clicked shut behind him, the bell chiming softly in his wake.
Hannah sat there for a long moment, listening to the rain tap against the windows, the silence stretching heavy around her.
Then she stood. Turned the lock.
And went back to the evidence of lives destroyed, of trust betrayed, of a legacy she couldn't escape.
And if her skin still tingled where he'd touched her, if her heart still ached with the memory of believing in him—
Well, that was just another lesson she needed to learn.
Trust was a fairy tale.
Love was a lie.
And she was done believing in either.
The storm rolled in fast, sweeping across Crystal Lake with a fury that rattled the bakery's windows. Rain lashed against the glass, thunder rumbling deep in the distance. The streetlights flickered, then cut out entirely, leaving the bakery bathed in an eerie half-darkness.
Hannah exhaled slowly, her fingers tightening around the edges of a flour-dusted recipe card. It was silly to be afraid of storms.
But she always had been. Ever since she was a kid, the crash of thunder and the howl of wind unsettled her in a way she could never quite shake.
Jake had figured that out early on. And somehow, without ever saying a word about it, he'd always seemed to turn up when the weather was bad. Distracting her. Holding her.
Hannah's fingers tightened around the edges of her grandmother's recipe card, the familiar scrawl of ⒈／⒋ tsp more vanilla for Mrs. Matthews—she likes it warm and rich blurring as her eyes stung.
She had believed in things. In the sweetness of trust, in the permanence of love.
But love had never been permanent for her. Not from her father. Not from Jake.
And yet, she still ached for him. Still wanted the lie, the illusion of safety that only his hands had ever given her.
A soft knock echoed against the glass.
Hannah looked up from the counter, her stomach tightening even before she saw him.
Jake stood outside in the rain, backlit by a flash of lightning, his damp jacket slung over one arm. He lifted a flashlight, his expression unreadable through the dim glow of the streetlights.
"Power's out on Main Street," he said when she unlocked the door. His voice was steady, quiet. "Just checking in."
Hannah scoffed, crossing her arms. "Routine patrol check?"
His lips quirked, but he didn't rise to the bait. "Something like that."
Another flicker of lightning illuminated the room, throwing sharp shadows across his face. The bakery suddenly felt too quiet, too small.
Without thinking, Hannah reached for the door and turned the lock behind him, the click somehow louder than the storm outside. Jake's gaze flickered to her hand, then back to her face. He didn't comment on it.
Instead, he stepped closer, his voice lower now, more personal. "You okay?"
Jake's voice was rough, thick with something she didn't want to name.
He stood close, close enough that she could see the strain in his jaw, the tension in his fingers where they curled into fists at his sides. His eyes flicked to the card, to the worn edges where she'd traced her grandmother's handwriting a hundred times before.
Hannah swallowed hard, looking down at the card, the ink smudged in places by years of use, of her grandmother's flour-dusted hands.
"I used to think as long as I had this bakery, I had her," she whispered. "Like the recipes could hold everything together."
Jake reached out, his fingers ghosting over the wooden box beside her, his touch reverent, as if he understood. Maybe he did.
"You still have her," he murmured. "And you have—"
Me.
He didn't say it, but she heard it in the way his breath hitched, in the way his fingers twitched at his sides like he was holding himself back.
She should walk away. Should put up the walls she'd been carefully rebuilding brick by brick.
But she didn't.
Instead, she lifted her gaze to his, knowing full well what would happen when she did.
The air between them crackled, hotter than the lightning outside, thicker than the storm pressing against the windows.
Hannah let go of the recipe card. It fluttered to the counter as she took a step forward, closing the space between them.
Jake didn't move—not away, at least. His hands remained clenched at his sides, but his chest rose and fell in sharp, uneven breaths.
"Hannah…"
She rose onto her toes, brushing her mouth against his. Just the barest contact, a whisper of warmth and longing.
A groan ripped from his throat.
Then he was kissing her like a man starved. Like he was drowning, and she was the only thing keeping him afloat.
She gasped into his mouth as he lifted her effortlessly, his hands gripping her thighs, her ass, pressing her against the counter. The hardness of it dug into her back, but she didn't care.
She needed him. Needed the lie, needed the comfort, needed the only arms that had ever made her feel whole.
Jake tore his mouth from hers, pressing his forehead against hers, his breath ragged. "Tell me to stop."
She didn't.
She curled her fingers into his damp shirt, fisting the fabric. "Take me upstairs."
A curse slipped from his lips, something desperate and raw, before he carried her through the darkened bakery, up the stairs to the apartment he had spent so many nights.
The moment they were inside, the door barely clicking shut, she was tugging at his shirt, her nails scraping against his stomach, feeling the tremor in his muscles.
Jake caught her wrists, his grip firm but shaking. "Let me," he rasped.
Hannah's breath hitched.
She tried to touch him again, but he shook his head.
"Please," he murmured, his voice breaking. "Just… let me do this for you."
Her knees almost buckled.
She should refuse. Should demand her own control, should keep herself from being vulnerable like this again.
But then he was lowering to his knees in front of her, sliding his hands up her thighs, pushing her shorts down with agonizing slowness.
She was already wet, aching, desperate for him.
And when his mouth found her—soft at first, reverent—her head fell back against the door with a soft cry.
"Jake."
His hands gripped her hips, holding her still as he worked her, his tongue stroking slow, deep, coaxing moans from her lips that she barely recognized as her own.
She twisted her fingers into his hair, tugging, trying to ground herself.
He growled against her, the vibration sending another wave of pleasure through her.
Her hips bucked, but he held her firm. "Please," he murmured again, his breath hot against her. "Let me give you this."
She let him.
Let him take her apart with his tongue, his hands, his mouth. Let herself forget for just a moment that he was the man who had broken her.
Because before that, he was also the man who had made her feel safe.
And when he finally lifted her into his arms, carrying her to bed, settling his weight over hers, she couldn't understand how this had ever been a lie.
"Hannah," he breathed against her lips as he pushed into her, slow, deliberate.
She gasped, arching into him, her nails digging into his back.
He moved inside her with aching reverence, his forehead pressed to hers, his breath shuddering with restraint.
She wrapped her legs around him, taking him deeper, needing him to fill the hollow spaces inside her.
"Look at me," he whispered.
She did.
And it nearly destroyed her.
Because his face was raw with emotion, his body trembling with the effort to hold back.
This wasn't just sex.
This was Jake making love to her.
And that was the most dangerous lie of all.
She felt herself breaking apart beneath him, pleasure cresting in waves so intense she could barely breathe.
"Jake—"
"I've got you," he whispered, his voice wrecked. "I've always got you."
And when she shattered, crying out his name, he followed right after, burying himself inside her with a ragged groan, his body shaking, his heart pounding wildly against hers.
For a long time, they just lay there, tangled together in the aftermath.
Hannah stared at the ceiling, the pleasure still thrumming through her veins, the weight of what they'd done pressing into her bones.
Jake pressed a soft kiss to her forehead.
Hannah swallowed, forcing herself to smile, even as her heart cracked open.
"I get it now," she murmured.
Jake tensed. "Get what?"
"How you could sleep with me while you were investigating my father." She forced out a brittle laugh, even as the words scraped against her throat. "It's just sex, right?"
His breath caught.
For a long moment, he didn't say anything.
Then, brokenly, he whispered, "Hannah, please—"
She pressed her lips to his, cutting him off.
She didn't want to hear his lies right now.
They hurt too much.